A review by damalireads
If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English by Noor Naga

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Those outside of a language, of a culture, see furniture through a window and believe it is a room. But those inside know there are infinite rooms just out of view, and that they can always be more deeply inside. 

An unnamed Egyptian-American woman moves to Cairo and meets an unnamed Egyptian man (“the boy from Shobrakheit”) who is unemployed following the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. The characters develop a tense love affair that increasingly becomes dark and violent as they grow to understand the power they do and do not have in their relationship.

As many people have said, the most interesting aspect of this book is the form. In Part 1, the book jumps between the perspectives of these two characters often (sometimes page by page), with each section beginning with a question that has no answer (“Is it arrogant to return to a place you’ve never been?”). In Part 2, these changing perspectives become increasingly hard to follow as there’s no obvious marking of the switch, and footnotes have been thrown in to provide cultural context to the references made. And in Part 3...I feel like it would be a spoiler to explain it, but it takes on a completely different form that breaks the 4th wall of the book, causing the reader to rethink everything they’ve read.

The central part of this story are the characters, neither of which are likable. The American woman is somehow both self-aware and ignorant. The boy from Shobrakheit initially evokes empathy that is ultimately suffocated by his misogyny and violence. At a high level, the character arcs work well as tools for the narrative, but at the micro level, they feel underdeveloped. More insight is given to the woman (which we learn why at the end), but the nature of the story requires a lot of telling through the eyes of the speaker so the reader can only infer so much.

To me, the ultimate strength of this book is really Naga’s writing of visceral experiences and the casual but striking philosophical ruminations by the characters. I also think that I do love books that zoom in on the power dynamics in individual relationships and also drill down into the concept of belonging/feeling out of place in a space. I’m always fascinated by the harm humans can do to one another, and the myriad of ways we try to “justify” it or claim the self-awareness of the harm is all the acknowledgement needed. I got a lot of that in this book so it clicked on that level. Also, many of the questions from Part 1 were gold to me.

Personally, I didn’t mind the changing perspectives. I know (& the author seems to as well) there is discomfort in including the voice of the boy from Shobrakheit as becomes more obviously abusive and fantasizes about the harm he or others could bring to the Egyptian-American woman. Those were honestly awful chapters to read & I can’t speak on if it was necessary or not. I do think his overall perspective of the woman was necessary, since he seemed to have a more critical view of her existing in a place with such a wealth of privilege and seemingly unaware of it. Part 3 is where I started tooooo kinda lose it lol – again avoiding spoilers, this section completely takes you out of the narrative and forces the reader to analyze the book in a way they were probably doing subconsciously, but is now made obvious. Initially, I found this to be a bit mad! A very odd way to close the book when the plot finally became strong enough to match the characterizations introduced. But on more reflections, I think this part does end up driving home the central question of this book – If an Egyptian cannot speak English, who is telling his story? This part drives mistrust of the reliability of the narrators, and I love that. But, I haven’t quite decided is this was actually subversive or just fake deep. Leaning towards the former, but the book is so short, I’m not sure how successful it was.

Overall, this was absolutely an interesting read. After reading an interview with the author too, my thoughts on this book became more positive. I’ll always be impressed by a book that can naturally spark a lot of reflections/questions that can take an almost academic tone (read: I miss school). I can honestly say I’ve never read anything like it, and I’ve decided that that’s a good thing. I can also say I probably wouldn’t recommend this to anyone, you’ll just have to decide for yourself (& also check content/trigger warnings bc ya).